Asia Update: Top Five Stories for the Week

Asia update. In Thailand, the connection between the film and revolution is much more overt—several student protesters have been detained for using a three-finger salute, a symbol of resistance in the movie.

The Hunger Games proves too threatening in China and Thailand. The release of the third installment of the franchise, “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1,” in China was postponed until January, reportedly to balance the 2014 foreign and domestic box office receipt totals. Some commentators have suggested that the move is more political, as the film depicts a dystopian world in which a revolutionary movement attempts to overthrow an authoritarian government.

In Thailand, the connection between the film and revolution is much more overt—several student protesters have been detained for using a three-finger salute, a symbol of resistance in the movie. The students, in Thailand’s northeast, were protesting the May 22 military coup that removed the populist Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra from power.

2. In Hong Kong, confrontations lead to questions over the future of protests.

Dozens of demonstrators, apparently frustrated with the nonviolent strategy that has guided the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests, used metal barricades to smash doors and windows of Hong Kong’s legislature in an attempt to break in. The police arrested six people for assault of police officers and criminal damage to property, and the leaders of pro-democracy and student groups joined the government in criticizing the violent demonstrators.

The incident came hours after the city of Hong Kong cleared out a smaller protest camp with no resistance; thirty court bailiffs enforced an injunction against street barricades at the request of the landlords of neighboring buildings in the area called Admiralty, and a similar injunction was issued for the protest site in Mong Kok.

Australia boosting cybersecurity cooperation within Asian countries

2017 saw Australia sign an agreement with Thailand in a bid to boost regional community security and they are now working in tandem with other Asian countries such as Singapore and China in a bid to tackle cybercrime within the Asia Pacific region. (more…)